The rich and the dead

Forbes has a list the rich and the dead (dead celebrities who continue to earn a lot.) Elvis, of course, tops the list, but it’s good to see Charles Schulz and Tolkien on the list as well.

Dominos to charge for delivery

Domino’s Pizza is trying to charge for delivery. But I thought the whole point of Domino’s was to deliver pizza, as opposed to eating it “there”. They may as well hike the price – which is what this effectively translates to. Speaking of which, I ordered a Deep Dish with jalapenos, tomato and onion a couple of weeks ago. I really liked it. When I called Domino’s yesterday, they remembered the order and delivered it within 10 minutes. Impressive. ...

Peru to use open source software

In June, Peru decided to use open source software. Today, California plans the same. If governments catch on to this trend, and go further by enforcing suppliers to use compatible systems, it’d be a real big boost to open systems.

Google toolbar has security holes

The Google toolbar has security holes. But they fixed it, and the toolbar’s automatically been updated! (At least, it’s been for me.) Pretty quick.

Polynomial time test for primality

Prof. Manindra Agarwal and his students at IIT-K have figured out a polynomial time test for primality. It was an unsolved problem. The RSA algorithm assumes that this is impossible. (NYTimes) Of course, others have claimed the same. To my knowledge, none is conclusively proven. What if they’re true? Well, in a few years, our cryptography algorithms will be useless. So it’s back to the drawing board, with security-related dot-coms from Univs popping up.

Blogging links

Berkeley’s course on weblogging has some pretty good links.

Full-text of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Incidentally, the full-text of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is available. (Note: you can’t click the links on the site. You’ll have to modify the URLs a bit.) More hitchhiking to keep you busy.

Moria poetry

The first link I found on Google when searching for “Moria” was Moria poetry. Now, Moria is this text-based game that I used to play until day-before. I like it. I don’t like poetry. Still, I gave it a shot, and before long, I read stuff like “Buffa in the seria of my sights split infinitive sunrise cicadas and more cicadas.” Sounds Vogon. No offence meant. But the only poetry I’ve enjoyed till date is Alice’s The Mouse’s Tail.

Microsoft will reveal Windows source

At last, Microsoft will be revealing its Windows source. Parts of it.

Blogtree

My Blogtree.

Sathish

Sathish, got your comment about problems on my new format. What’s your e-mail ID? Please mail me at [email protected] and I’ll try to fix it.

Changes to my site

I’ve overhauled my site, replacing tables and frames with CSS. If you have problems with your browser, please let me know.

Dontlink.com

Dontlink.com talks about sites that don’t want to be linked to. Pretty silly, as some of their linking policies reveal.

Cold and cold weather

I have a cold. And although some Chinese may say otherwise, it has nothing to do with cold weather.

Download and burn songs on a CD

The music industry has taken a step away from the ridiculous. Now, on pressplay.com, you can download and burn songs on a CD for a fee. (The big deal is that, earlier, you could only stream and listen. For a fee.)

Hiring young couples

This is a smart one. Sony Ericsson makes these mobile phones with cameras. To promote them, they’ve hired young couples, who’ll go to bars, etc and ask people to take a snap of them. If I were asked, I’d fiddle with the camera/phone a bit.

My page on the Internet Archive

The Internet Archive has archived my page as of Aug 2001. The site hasn’t changed much since then.

Stock market falls when the Parliament is in session

The stock market falls when the Parliament is in session. Particularly if the Budget is discussed. Personally, I would attribute it to investor over-optimism. I don’t see how the politicians take bad decisions more than half the time, because in that case, we’re better off without them. Hmm…

Second largest PC and Web base

China, which anyway has the largest mobile user base, has now beaten Japan to the second largest PC and Web base in the world. Wonder how they do it.

Changes to Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg explains some proposed changes in answer to a question on Slashdot.